


When I was a child....

by fawatson



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-16 02:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14802687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: How Hilarion became a Frontier Wolf





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riventhorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/gifts).



> **Request:** I'd like a story exploring Hilarion's backstory before he joins the frontier wolves. It could be when he's older or when he's a child or both. I'd prefer it if it was a bit more on the angsty side as opposed to completely happy, as I imagine something must have happened to get him shipped off to the frontier. 
> 
> **Author's Notes:** Homosexuality was not automatically frowned on in Ancient Rome. Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status, as long as they took the dominant or penetrative role. Acceptable male partners were slaves, prostitutes, and entertainers, whose lifestyle placed them in the nebulous social realm of 'infamia', excluded from the normal protections accorded a citizen even if they were technically free. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome for further information. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit by them.

I knew I had been much wanted before I was born: the long anticipated heir to my father’s estate. I was named for his younger brother, who, having converted to Christianity, when seized with religious fervour had divided his inheritance between his two brothers and gone off to the wilderness to pray. My father was of a quite different persuasion than his younger brother. He joined the Roman army. 

After a few years’ service, wounds left Father with a limp and he was honourably discharged, taking money in lieu of his allotted acres near one of the borders. Instead he bought an inn on one of the major roads leading to Camulodunum and married the daughter of its former owner. I was given to understand those of my paternal family who were left back in Syria were respectable, but had not aspired to Roman citizenship. It was only the combination of my father’s own military efforts, plus the dual inheritance, which made it possible for him to marry well and improve his standing. He Romanised his own name when he made the alliance; but honoured the brother whose money had made this possible by naming me for him.

My mother had two children before me, and she bore one after: all girls. None survived to adulthood. I had a few memories of the oldest, Aurelia, of playing with hoops and running in circles with the dog in the garden. She died from some infection about a year after her betrothal. I was told I was sick at the time, too, but the fever was milder and I recovered, although I was thereafter very prone to colds in winter. My second sister, I was told, had been sickly from birth and did not even reach her naming day. I was told about her only after I asked why my mother prayed every day at the little shrine to the goddess Lucina in the southwest corner of the garden. I was fascinated with Olivia, who was born after me, and when she died shortly before reaching her first birthday, I sobbed inconsolably when she was buried. Not that I actually remembered this, of course. It was something I knew because of countless repetitions of this story by Nurse, who had been there. It was borrowed memory. 

I had already passed from Nurse’s care into the less tender hands of a tutor when my mother suddenly died bearing a little brother for me. A wet-nurse was bought for him; but while the woman’s own child thrived, young Aurelius did not gain weight. He cried constantly, a thin fretful wailing that kept the household awake until finally he wailed no more and was buried before the garden shrine next to my dead baby sister. 

My early childhood was unremarkable. Apart from the time I spent with my tutor I was left free to do as I pleased. I was friends with the children of the man who owned the farm than abutted our inn. They shared my lessons after which we would slip down to the stream most summer afternoons to splash about when it was too hot to run and tickle trout when it was cool. Drusus became my closest companion in everything; at four years younger than me, Drusilla was more nuisance than anything else. But as the beloved younger sister of my best friend I tolerated her tagging along after us. In the winters we amused ourselves in the barns helping with the horses. Plus, there always seemed to be a new litter of kittens to play with. Regardless of the season, I saw little of my father who was always a distant figure issuing orders to the slaves (who did the actual work of running the inn) before he retreated into his office at the back to figure the accounts. 

When I was ten, I was betrothed to Drusilla. It seemed to me the chief difference this made was that she was no longer allowed to run free with her older brother and me. She knew how to read and write and do her sums. Not for her the study of Cicero and Marcus Aurelius inflicted on us boys. Instead she stayed home learning now to spin the wool the farm produced, or to dye it rich colours, or weave it into thick blankets. I was told she was adding to her marriage chest. It all meant little to me. Drusus and I continued to share a tutor every morning and then to roam in the afternoons; and, after weapons practice was provided, we tested one another’s skills with spear and short sword. 

Life changed, however, when I was twelve after my father took a second wife. He had had no incentive to remarry, having already produced three children, albeit only with one surviving. Nonetheless, two of my sisters survived to their naming and this exempted him from the taxes that would otherwise likely have propelled him into an early remarriage. My guess is he felt no need as he had one living son, and for some time was quite simply too busy re-establishing a rundown inn, building it into the large and lucrative enterprise it became, to look about him for another wife. Now, though, he wed the widowed younger sister of the local fort commander, a much more prestigious alliance than his first marriage. 

She promptly produced three bouncing healthy sons one after the other. I went swiftly from being the valued only son to the pale sickly boy whose virtues paled considerably when compared with the robust boisterous toddlers who soon claimed the greater portion of my father’s attention. Not that I felt any loss of that; he had always been a distant figure to me, one respected more than loved. But I could not help but contrast his easy affection towards them with his more formal regard for me. 

I was also awkward as many youth are at that age, growing beyond my strength and looking weedy and angular as I gained height without the matching breadth. Not that I was ever going to aspire to my father’s burly muscular build; I took more after my dead mother. I suspect I was also awkward socially, unsure of how to deal with this second wife who, busy producing her own offspring, had no time for me. 

As though belatedly aware of the different relationship he had with my younger brothers, it was now my father began to show some interest in me, spending a couple of hours with me every afternoon in his office, showing me the ledgers and discussing his plans to refurbish this room or that, or apprentice the new slave to old Quintus (whose knowledge of horse-flesh was unsurpassed but who was struggling with arthritis). In other words, I began to learn the business of a prosperous and busy inn. It was not a change I appreciated, especially when it curtailed the freedom to roam to which I had been used. Besides, to a boy who had been raised on tales of Roman legions, being an innkeeper seemed tedious. I ran errands as often as I could and dawdled on the way back as much as possible. This did not endear me to my father. The contrast with his younger sons who both resembled and clearly adored him could hardly have been more stark. Nonetheless, I was given the respect due a first son. He went to considerable expense for my coming of age, and kissed me twice on the cheek as he cut my bulla and gave me a fine gold ring to mark the occasion plus a new saddle for my horse. Thus for a few years, we bumbled along, neither really happy with one another but not completely dissatisfied. 

The end to this came swiftly one bright clear cold winter afternoon a few days after my seventeenth birthday. Drusus and I had continued firm friends and, with my father off for a day’s trading in Camulodunum, and his parents gone for a visit to relatives, we had a rare day completely to ourselves. I had been given a new bow and was eager to try it. Drusus joined me in raiding the inn’s kitchen for provisions and we set out in the morning. One does not normally shoot rabbits with the bow and arrow. We competed: how many could he trap with snares – how many could I kill with an arrow? Not surprisingly he won; Drusus usually won any contest between us. We celebrated with a jug of cider in a snug we had made for ourselves in an abandoned shed at the edge of the inn’s boundary. Drusus was a year older than I, and always more venturesome. Last summer he had overseen my sexual explorations with one of the local girls. This winter we had been exploring one another. His body was arched with his head back and mouth open in a long moan, when I looked up from what I was doing between his legs to see Father peering in. He had got home from market early.


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s not as if you’re a green youth, Hilarion!” I winced at the exasperation in his voice. “How long have you been in the Legion – two years – three?”

“Four,” I replied. I stood as tall and stiff as I could manage before the Commander. He really wasn’t a bad sort. I had been in long enough to know a few bad officers (my previous Commander, for example). Gaius Severus would never be the kind of leader whom the soldiers loved. He was too calm and emotionless to win their hearts. But he was reliable – the kind of officer one could trust to do the right thing. Lacking political connections and without the kind of brilliance in strategy to shine in battle he was never going to rise higher in service than he was now. But it was clear he had made his peace with that. He had been transferred here six months before. In another six months he would reach his twenty years and retire to raise horses. I could almost read his mind: why me – why _now_? He just looked at me – _hard._

“It isn’t fair,” I said, in response to that unanswered question

“ _Life_ is unfair.” He sighed. “I would have thought better of you, Hilarion. After all: you come from a respectable family. Your father served in the 2nd Augusta didn't he?"

"I have no father," I said stonily.

There was another deep sigh before the Commander shuffled some paper on his desk. Finally he looked me in the eyes and said, "consider yourself confined to the fort until further notice.”

It was less than I had expected. 

“Pay docked one month–” 

That was more like it. 

“And you are in charge of cleaning the latrines until further notice. Dismissed!” 

I emerged to the flickering unsteady light of a grey afternoon. It had rained off and on much of the day. Currently dry, there was a lingering dampness to the air. The slight sea breeze held the smell of more rain later. The drill field had already been sodden from last week’s rain; now it looked drowned. Not that we drilled over-much in this fort. Gariannonum was just a small shore fort, situated along the coastline ostensibly for early warning of pirates. There was a regular lookout kept, of course, and the daily routine was generally military. But only the Commander and the one or two grizzled veterans he had brought with him when he transferred here several months ago had ever been on campaign. The rest of us had heard about the constant vigilance needed along the German border with an air of disbelief. Perhaps once the Iceni had been feared, but it was many generations ago. As for pirates? This garrison seemed to extract port taxes, more than fight off marauders. This was a safe, sleepy posting. There was really nothing to fear. 

Nothing except local politics, that is. 

The quartermaster had a regular practice of skimming from supplies. Fourteen sacks of grain were ordered, but only eleven recorded as arrived, and the proceeds of the other three went into a coffer he kept under his bed. Local farmers profited when the fort bought provisions to make up the shortfall, and the quartermaster took a cut there too. The old Commander had been in cahoots with this, and when he retired took with him quite a substantial chest to supplement his earnings. This new Commander had been the new broom, or so I had thought. The quartermaster had been more circumspect for a few months after Severus arrived. But the Commander made no checks and last month once again I noticed a difference between the tallies and the stores. And so I set a trap for the venal Junius and exposed his larceny before the local townspeople. 

And landed myself in a heap of trouble. 

“They knew him for a thief _already,_ ” I had protested not an hour since, when called to account. 

“And he has been arrested as such,” reminded Gaius Severus. “But it need not have been dealt with publically - _should_ not have been. We could have cleaned house quietly had you left it to me.”

“I didn’t know your plans,” I protested. 

“Did you really expect the fort’s commander to confide them in a junior optio?” 

I had winced then; his tone of voice had dripped sarcasm. 

“Had you thought me unaware, you could have quietly brought the matter to my attention. Indeed your duty demanded it. Instead you exposed Rome to ridicule.” 

So…latrines. Not that I would clean them myself. It was a task reserved for raw recruits when not allocated to some hapless miscreant for punishment. But it would fall to me to inspect them, not a pleasant job at the best of times and particularly odoriferous at the moment with fully one quarter of the fort’s complement down with a fever, and the warm weather of summer. 

I was signing for lime in the log-book of our new acting quartermaster when the old left the fort under close guard, bound for trial in Verulamium. Young Rufus came to tell me, full of hero-worship about what I had done and vociferous indignation over my punishment. He thought I should know my sacrifice had not been in vain. Junius would definitely be thrown out of the service. I had had the opposite from more experienced soldiers, some of whom had earned the odd extra coin from the old quartermaster for deliveries. No adulation from them. They tended to jeer at me. One had even relieved himself on the newly scrubbed tiles of the latrine just _after_ I inspected them. I had begun to adopt the outward semblance of insouciance. Nothing mattered - everything was calm - no rush! 

The sun shone hot and I was dripping sweat while supervising the digging of a new latrine two months later when the dispatch rider thundered into the fort in a cloud of dust. An hour later I was summoned. 

“I have done my best for you,” explained Gaius Severus in his characteristic calm and precise manner. “But you need to remember: Junius is not only a citizen; he is a member of General Magnentius’s extended family on his mother’s side. His indictment for theft has been a source of deep embarrassment for his relatives, one they would have accepted in silence had his arrest been handled tactfully...discretely. Public humiliation in front of the local tribes, however, has brought down on your head a certain…fall-out. Even disgraced, _he_ had political strings to pull; I have none. 

“What are these Wolves?” I asked. 

“Auxiliaries,” he explained, “not that we make much distinction these days between the regular Legion and Auxiliary cohorts. They are monitoring tribes on the northern border of the Empire.” 

“Nicely out of sight of those in power,” I said cynically. 

“And, if you are lucky, firmly out of mind,” returned the Commander.


End file.
